


The Stalkers

by Aaron_The_8th_Demon



Series: Voices From The Zone [1]
Category: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Genre: Brain Damage, Bribery, Exploration, Gen, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Journalism, Loneliness, Loss of Identity, Military Backstory, Original Character Death(s), Post-Game(s), Science Experiments, Science Fiction, Serious Injuries, Sick Character, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-29 00:41:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8469184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon
Summary: This statement was heavily edited, due to the speaker having brain damage and being hard to understand.





	1. About The Oasis

Before you write about me… please… don’t put my name. Nobody needs to know, really. You can use my old nickname.

[ _He’s clearly nervous, constantly adjusting the old military sweater he has on._ ]

The beginning for me… really, not even when I became a Spetsnaz and got stationed here. I guess I should tell you a little, it’ll make more sense that way. I joined the army with my friend Misha after we finished school, he got trained as a sniper, I got trained as a field medic. We even went through the training together, the Spetsnaz corps. And then officer training. When I made myself disappear, I was a captain, and he was a senior lieutenant and actually got promoted to captain a little while later.

I left because I did something horrible and ugly back home in Chernigov. I don’t really want to say anything about that… but I spent a few months in the Zone, through the autumn. I made friends, a couple of them died. Eventually I went back to Chernigov, I brought my daughter here. And… she got sick… I didn’t know what to do. I had to carry her across Zaton, and then all the way to Yanov… my friends helped me out, of course. Kolya, Vladik. Vladik’s brother Vanya was with us, too. I just felt… my daughter was sick and I couldn’t do anything, I’m a trained medic but nothing I did could help her. God, she was only four…

When we got to Yanov, Vladik had a friend of his guard her, he’s a sergeant-major in the Duty faction so he could do things like that. So my little girl is in the hands of soldiers I don’t know, and meanwhile here we are, heading to scientist who will rob us blind in exchange for their help while Kolya and Vladik are fighting the entire time. The irony, actually, is very funny to me now. Vladik and Kolya were not friends. Really, I’m not great friends with Vladik, either. But now, Kolya is a couple with Vanya. [ _Chuckles._ ]

So we went to talk to the scientists. And it’s only because Vanya is a freelance mercenary that we have the money to pay them off. (It means he’ll do jobs for almost anyone, but he’s not a bloodthirsty cutthroat like real mercs.) They gave us this list of specific artifacts, and they could _maybe_ transmute them so that we could get a “super artifact” which would cure my daughter. So now we had to drag all over the Zone, poking into all these shitty anomaly clusters, and it took us weeks to find the stupid rocks. We took them to the scientists, these stupid artifacts, after we’d had to fight off bandits, stolen equipment from Duty and been hurt in anomalies. So what happens next? Well, it doesn’t fucking work, of course! All that money, all that time and effort, just down the shitter. The artifacts transmute and it holds up for about two seconds before collapsing into a worthless piece of trash. And by then, my daughter wouldn’t wake up at all.

God. I still get angry thinking about it.

There was only one last chance - a place Vanya had been searching for for years now, this mythical place nobody believed in called the Oasis. I didn’t even believe it, but to save my little girl, I would do anything. Vanya thought he’d gotten close - some mysterious little bunker in the side of a hill, which apparently attracted zombies for some reason. So they killed all the zombies and I carried her in.

I think it took the whole night for us to figure it out. Vanya radioed us from inside it, telling us how to get in, and we all went through together. And inside this place, it was strange, because not only was the floor covered with very clean water, but it was as warm as summer in there even though this was in January. I didn’t know how to feel about this, we were all tired and injured, but nothing was happening. And it happened just by accident, really, because I was exhausted and my legs hurt. I just sat down in the puddle, and I tried to wake her up to give her a drink of this water. With her in it next to me, and as I rubbed her face she did wake up, because my hand was wet. And she just looked up at me, smiling, as if nothing had happened, she’d never got sick.

It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw, and I almost started crying.

And that was how we figured it out, that it was the water. We got into just our underwear and were sitting in it, my daughter was splashing us all and laughing. Vanya was drinking the water like it was vodka, and Kolya just stuck his whole head in. (He’d been accidentally shot in the jaw.) Vanya was so relieved, and we had no idea why until he explained to us that he had gotten AIDS a couple of years ago.

So now, me and my little girl live here, at the very edge of the Zone, where it’s almost safe. Because I’m here to be away from my past, from where the army can find me and have me shot. Kolya and Vanya sometimes hike all the way out here to come see me, and even bring her a treat from the Big Land once in a while. If anything ever comes by that could hurt her, which is rare, well, I’m an ex-Spetsnaz, you can imagine how that always goes. And out here… we just live.

  
_Valik Pin, permanent stalker_


	2. About Being Lost And Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This statement was heavily edited, due to the speaker having brain damage and being hard to understand.

I used to have a callsign... a “Zone name...” but I don’t remember it. I don’t remember who gave it to me. Regardless of faction affiliation... everyone in the Zone needs to know this…

I know I was once with the Monolith. But it’s been more than two years... since the brain scorcher turned off. I don’t know what happened to me… a long time ago... many months... I woke up. I don’t remember how I got here... this is a long way from the scorcher. I was found by a stalker... he called himself Atomchik… he was rummaging my things. I was just lying there on my back... in the mud... being searched. He must have thought I was dead. Atomchik… he was this veteran stalker. He saw me look at him... and then his gun got in my face... telling me he would shoot if I tried anything. But I explained... I wouldn’t attack him... I was just lost. Somehow… he believed me.

He got me up on my feet... asked my name. I don’t know my callsign… so I gave him the real one... my birth name… he wanted to know what happened to me… but I don’t know the answer. He said I could go to the Cordon with him… so I could get my wits again. So we went… it was long, this road… between Cordon and the Garbage. We slept up in trees. There were many dogs. Sometimes… we couldn’t walk on the road. There could be too many dogs. Or bandits. And anomalies. So many of them. But Atomchik was on his way back. So he didn’t care about taking me. He was headed to see… this military friend… who could send his cash to his family. In a few days… I remembered. How to survive in the Zone. We thought… it could get better. The Cordon is an easy place.

We had almost got there… taking shelter from a blowout. In this little drain tunnel. But the bandits… they saw it too… decided to rob us. We killed them… but he got hit… right in the gut. I tried to patch him. But after… the blowout ended… two bloodsuckers. Just luck. I don’t really… have too much luck. But I killed them. The bloodsuckers. They chased me even… but I got them… too late. I carried my friend… for two days to a rookie camp. They were young. Didn’t know about Monolith. They did not fear me. But for nothing… he died the same night… right after we got there.

So now… I have the message… for all stalkers. Everywhere.

It’s been more than two years… since the scorcher got shut down. I believe… if I was able to wake up… there are others. Like me. Maybe stalkers… they won’t tell the difference between the awake ones… or the ones still as Monolith. So I want you… please… kill us. Shoot on sight… I’m alone… I’m lost without Atomchik. He got killed… and was trying to help me. But got killed anyway. I am a damned man… we’re all damned. Put us out of our misery.

  
_Nikolay Ivanovich, lone stalker_


	3. Stalker's Chorus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interviewed here: Nina Sharp, Freedom sniper; Warrant Officer Ivan Barshuk, Duty guard; Oleg Talon, bandit; Seryozha Solitary, permanent stalker; Yosef Shadow, lone stalker

I came here with my boyfriend, three years ago. We were both seventeen, we wanted to get married, but my parents wanted me to go to school instead. I know, it probably sounds very foolish to hear that… and it was, which I know now. But really, I’m glad we did anyway.

We sort of started off doing odd jobs for other stalkers, figuring out how things work here. I got really good with a scoped rifle, he was good with artifacts and avoiding anomalies, like he had a sense for them. After we got a little cash, something other than a fall coat for armor, we went with a couple other guys up to the warehouses to join Freedom. And of course Slavka is a very friendly guy, he gets along with everyone, they liked him right away. I’m not as good with people, but they took me because I can use a Dragunov. And the first thing we do? We go to the barricade, of course! I guess because they don’t have enough guys to send there, so new members go. It’s like a proving ground, and a really tough one too.

So the barricade is this spot on the road, with rocks on the sides and fences to make a bottleneck, and they also somehow dragged all kinds of crap there too, for cover. We were there two nights, sitting at a fire and smoking kolbasa over it, which tasted very good. Nothing even happened while we were there. So the next night, after we’d gotten back, it was a shock when one of our guys came back half-dead, all covered in blood and screaming about how the others were slaughtered. So we had to go running back over, a huge group of us, with even some of those powered exoskeletons and heavy machine guns. But again, nothing. They told us it was the Monolith, they’d killed everyone, they were so tough you could bury them in concrete and they’d dig their way out in five minutes.

But it actually kept happening just like this: any patrol I was on, any watch, it just went so well. So they all loved me, I was good luck. They all called me like their sister, very friendly, and it bugged Slavka a bit until he figured out they didn’t mean anything by it. We’d run errands for Skinflint together, gathering things we found or orders from his contacts.

And then, on one of my “days off,” Slavka went on a raid with some other guys against a squad of mercs. And got killed.

Everyone was sad after that, if not for him then for me. They all gave me hugs, his team brought back his gun and his gas mask for me. And they asked me: “Will you stay here with us? Are you going back to the Big Land?” No, I told them, I would stay. Because I had been there long enough, that I had a love-hate relationship with the Zone, it held me there. I can’t imagine life anywhere else, now.

 

*

 

You know - it’s more orderly here, not like other factions. We find gear, or take it from enemies, it gets taken right to Petrenko, not just hoarded for ourselves. And we earn the right to use it, proving ourselves. I’ve been with Duty since 2007, that’s why I’m in an exoskeleton, not some noob who doesn’t know how to use or maintain it properly. Besides, if you earn it, you gain a real appreciation for it, you’re one of the faction’s best soldiers. It’s a badge of office. Or a Groza, the same thing, only once you know where to find ammunition for it, how to care for it, they will issue you one. And then these are extensions of your own body, you feel naked without them. By that point - you can take down a chimera or a pseudogiant on your own. In a team, you’re the most deadly, we use Spetsnaz as the gold standard and the soldiers like me absolutely meet that mark. But it’s only the veterans who have earned their gear, it’s very orderly, they’re quite careful about everything. That’s why we’re the most powerful faction in the Zone. It’s why I’m proud to be a member.

 

*

 

I think my faction has kind of a bad rep. I mean, we’re not all thugs, we’re not all assholes. I mean, some of us are, sure. But some people are just bad people, everywhere, not just with us. Like me, I’m only here because I got forced, there was no money to make on the Big Land, the Cordon had been pretty much totally looted by the time I got here, so now I joined up with them and have to spend my time mugging stalkers. Of course I don’t like it, it’s not really my thing, but I have to send money back home, like a lot of people here. I just do it different from some others.

 

*

 

I’ve been here five years, since I was sixteen. I lived in this little village that was basically the Zone anyway, and it was very easy to get in through the woods, because the army can’t be everywhere at once. It’s been a while, so I don’t remember too much from that, except that I wandered around for a while and the Zone was changing all the time. I helped a few stalkers here and there, but I was mostly on my own, I even found a little kitten which is now my pet who I named Cake, and grew up to be enormous. But he still comes to me purring, I give him a can of Tourist Breakfast, he’ll play if I take the sling off my shooter and waggle it around. (Smiles.)

But being here so long, when I came so young, the Zone is just part of me. I’m never surprised by it, I don’t provoke it, and it leaves me alone with my pet cat. If a stalker happens by needing a rest or a sausage, I help him out. Every so often I’ll hike over to Yanov for supplies, they all know me there, and I’ll run a couple odd jobs to pay for it and then come back home. And really, like I said, being in the Zone this long and it’s just in you, but you’re okay with it. People know you, they tell you stories, you just help some of them out only because they need help and not so they'll owe you.

And yes… some are like you. They hear me talk like this, ask if I always talk like this, how old I am. But yes. I’m twenty-one this year. So they always tell me: “You’re wise beyond your years.” So I always tell them the same thing: “If you just live in the Zone, don’t provoke it, then it will just leave you, you gain an understanding. And then after that you just live, like anywhere else.”

 

*

 

I’ll just tell you right out: I’m only here because I’m already here, and don’t feel like going anymore.

I’ve done pretty much all of it. I’ve traveled the whole Zone, talked with most of the factions. I asked Duty and Freedom, but didn’t really fit with either of them. I tried being a loner, but it’s just too much work, with only yourself to rely on and no really good safe place to curl up in at night like other factions. I even got recruited by the mercs, I was with them the longest, until I got sick of killing people “just because.” I know everyone thinks of mercs as rich, but the squad I was in, our squad leader got most of the dough for every job.

So what do I do now?

I grew up in the outside, of course, but never fit there. Tried to live a few places, tried to work a few jobs, but nothing was the right thing. Then I came here, but nothing here is right, either. I have nowhere to belong to, I’ll be just by myself forever I think. So what do I do now? Where do I go, when there’s nowhere _to_ go?


End file.
